At this point we may well stop to survey the new world-states which had been created by this quarter of a century of eager competition.
First among them, in extent and importance, stood the new empire of France. It covered a total area of five million square miles, and in size ranked third in order, coming after the older empires of Russia and Britain. It had been the result of the strenuous labours of three-quarters of a century, dating from the first invasion of Algiers; it included also some surviving fragments of the earlier French Empire. But overwhelmingly the greater part of this vast dominion had been acquired during the short period which we have surveyed in this chapter; and its system of organisation and government had not yet had time to establish itself. It had been built only at the cost of strenuous labour, and many wars. Yet the French had shown in its administration that they still retained to the full that imaginative tact in the handling of alien peoples which had stood them in good stead in India and America during the eighteenth century. Once their rule was established the French had on the whole very little trouble with their subjects; and it is impossible to praise too highly the labours of civilisation which French administrators were achieving. So far as their subjects were concerned, they may justly be said to have regarded themselves as trustees. So far as the rest of the civilised world was concerned, the same praise cannot be given; for the French policy in the economic administration of colonies was definitely one of monopoly and exclusion. The French Empire fell into three main blocks. First, and most important, was the empire of Northern Africa, extending from Algiers to the mouth of the Congo, and from the Atlantic to the valley of the Nile. Next came the rich island of Madagascar; lastly the eastern empire of Annam and Tonking, the beginnings of which dated back to the eighteenth century. A few inconsiderable islands in the Pacific and the West Indies, acquired long since, a couple of towns in India, memories of the dreams of Dupleix, and the province of French Guiana in South America, which dated back to the seventeenth century, completed the list. For the most part a recent and rapid creation, it nevertheless had roots in the past, and was the work of a people experienced in the handling of backward races.
Next may be named the curious dominion of the Congo Free State, occupying the rich heart of the African continent. Nominally it belonged to no European power, but was a recognised neutral territory. In practice it was treated as the personal estate of the Belgian king, Leopold II. Subject to closer international restrictions than any other European domain in the non-European world, the Congo was nevertheless the field of some of the worst iniquities in the exploitation of defenceless natives that have ever disgraced the record of European imperialism. International regulations are no safeguard against misgovernment; the only real sanction is the character and spirit of the government. For the Congo iniquities Leopold II. must be held guilty at the bar of posterity. When he went to his judgment in 1908 this rich realm passed under the direct control of the Belgian government and parliament, and an immediate improvement resulted.
The least successful of the new world-states was that of Italy. Its story was a story of disaster and disappointment. It included some two hundred thousand square miles of territory; but they were hot and arid lands on the inhospitable shores of the Red Sea and in Somaliland. Italy had as yet no real opportunity of showing how she would deal with the responsibilities of empire.
The most remarkable, in many respects, of all these suddenly acquired empires was that of Germany. For it was practically all obtained within a period of three years, without fighting or even serious friction. It fell almost wholly within regions where Germany's interests had been previously negligible, and British trade predominant. Yet its growth had not been impeded, it had even been welcomed, by its rivals. This easily-won empire was indeed relatively small, being not much over one million square miles, little more than one-fifth of the French dominions. But it was five times as large as Germany itself, and it included territories which were, on the whole, richer than those of France. The comparative smallness of its area was due to the fact that Germany was actually the last to enter the race. She took no steps to acquire territory, she showed no desire to acquire it, before 1883; if she had chosen to begin ten years earlier, as she might easily have done, or if she had shown any marked activity in exploring or missionary work, without doubt she could have obtained a much larger share of African soil.
These rich lands afforded to their new masters useful supplies of raw materials, which were capable of almost indefinite expansion. They included, in East and South-West Africa, areas well suited for white settlement; but German emigrants, despite every encouragement, refused to settle in them. An elaborately scientific system of administration, such as might be expected from the German bureaucracy, was devised for the colonies; officials and soldiers have from the beginning formed a larger proportion of their white population than in any other European possessions. Undoubtedly the government of the German colonies was in many respects extremely efficient. But over-administration, which has its defects even in an old and well-ordered country, is fatal to the development of a raw and new one. Although Germany has, in order to increase the prosperity of her colonies, encouraged foreign trade, and followed a far less exclusive policy than France, not one of her colonies, except the little West African district of Togoland, has ever paid its own expenses. In the first generation of its existence the German colonial empire, small though it is in comparison with the British or the French, actually cost the home government over 100,000,000 pounds in direct outlay.
The main cause of this was that from the first the Germans showed neither skill nor sympathy in the handling of their subject populations. The uniformed official, with his book of rules, only bewilders primitive folk, and arouses their resentment. But it was not only official pedantry which caused trouble with the subject peoples; still more it was the ruthless spirit of mere domination, and the total disregard of native rights, which were displayed by the German administration. The idea of trusteeship, which had gradually established itself among the rulers of the British dominions, and in the French colonies also, was totally lacking among the Germans. They ruled their primitive subjects with the brutal intolerance of Zabern, with the ruthless cruelty since displayed in occupied Belgium. This was what made the rise of the German dominion a terrible portent in the history of European imperialism. The spirit of mere domination, regardless of the rights of the conquered, had often shown itself in other European empires; but it had always had to struggle against another and better ideal, the ideal of trusteeship; and, as we have seen, the better ideal had, during the nineteenth century, definitely got the upper hand, especially in the British realms, whose experience had been longest. But the old and bad spirit reigned without check in the German realms. And even when, in 1907, it began to be seriously criticised, when its disastrous and unprofitable results began to be seen, the ground on which it was challenged in discussions in Germany was mainly the materialist ground that it did not pay.
The justification for these assertions is to be found in the history of the principal German colonies. In the Cameroons the native tribes, who had been so ready to receive European government that they had repeatedly asked for British protection, were driven to such incessant revolts that the annals of the colony seem to be annals of continuous bloodshed: forty-six punitive expeditions were chronicled in the seventeen years from 1891—long after the establishment of the German supremacy, which took place in 1884. The record of East Africa was even more terrible for the ferocity with which constant revolts were suppressed. But worst of all was the story of South-West Africa. There were endless wars against the various tribes; but they culminated in the hideous Herero war of 1903-6. The Hereros, driven to desperation by maltreatment, had revolted and killed some white farmers. They were punished by an almost complete annihilation. The spirit of this hideous slaughter is sufficiently expressed by the proclamation of the governor, General von Trotha, in 1904. 'The Herero people must now leave the land. Within the German frontier every Herero, with or without weapon, with or without cattle, will be shot. I shall take charge of no more women and children, but shall drive them back to their people, or let them be shot at.' Ten thousand of these unhappy people, mainly old men, women and children, were driven into the desert, where they perished. There is no such atrocious episode in the history of European imperialism since Pizarro's slaughter of the Incas; if even that can be compared with it.
The causes of these ceaseless and ruinous wars were to be found partly in the total disregard of native custom, and in the hide-bound pedantry with which German-made law and the Prussian system of regimentation were enforced upon the natives; but it was to be found still more in the assumption that the native had no rights as against his white lord. His land might be confiscated; his cattle driven away; even downright slavery was not unknown, not merely in the form of forced labour, which has been common in German colonies, but in the form of the actual sale and purchase of negroes. Herr Dernburg, who became Colonial Secretary in 1907, himself recorded that he met in East Africa a young farmer who told him that he had just bought a hundred and fifty negroes; he also described the settlers' pleasing practice of sitting beside the wells with revolvers, in order to prevent the natives from watering their cattle, and to force them to leave them behind; and he noted that officials nearly always carried negro whips with them. These practices, indeed, were condemned by the German Government itself, but only after many years, and mainly because they were wasteful. Government representatives have told the Reichstag, as Herr Schleitwein did in 1904, that they must pursue a 'healthy egoism,' and forswear 'humanitarianism and irrational sentimentality.' 'The Hereros must be forced to work, and to work without compensation and for their food only. ... The sentiments of Christianity and philanthropy with which the missionaries work must be repudiated with all energy.' This is what is called Realpolitik.
Is it too much to say that the appearance of the spirit thus expressed was a new thing in the history of European imperialism? Is it not plain that if this spirit should triumph, the ascendancy of Europe over the non-European world must prove to be, not a blessing, but an unmitigated curse? Yet the nation which had thus acquitted itself in the rich lands which it had so easily acquired was not satisfied; it desired a wider field for the exhibition of its Kultur, its conception of civilisation.
From the beginning it was evident that the colonial enthusiasts of Germany had no intention of resting satisfied with the considerable dominions they had won, but regarded them only as a beginning, as bases for future conquests. The colonies were not ends in themselves, but means for the acquisition of further power; and it was this, even more than the ruthlessness with which the subject peoples were treated, which made the growth of the German dominions a terrible portent. For since the whole world was now portioned out, new territories could only be acquired at the cost of Germany's neighbours. This was, indeed, at first the programme only of extremists; the mass of the German people, like Bismarck, took little interest in colonies. But the extremists proved that they could win over the government to their view; the German people, most docile of nations, could be gradually indoctrinated with it. And because this was so, because the ugly spirit of domination and of unbridled aggressiveness was in these years gradually mastering the ruling forces of a very powerful state, and leading them towards the catastrophe which was to prove the culmination of European imperialism, it is necessary to dwell, at what may seem disproportionate length, upon the development of German policy during the later years of our period.
Filled with pride in her own achievements, believing herself to be, beyond all rivalry, the greatest nation in the world, already the leader, and destined to be the controller, of civilisation, Germany could not bring herself to accept a second place in the imperial sphere. She had entered late into the field, by no fault of her own, and found all the most desirable regions of the earth already occupied. Now that 'world-power' had become the test of greatness among states, she could be content with nothing short of the first rank among world-states; if this rank could not be achieved, she seemed to be sentenced to the same sort of fate as had befallen Holland or Denmark: she might be ever so prosperous, as these little states were, but she would be dwarfed by the vast powers which surrounded her. But the German world-state was not to be the result of a gradual and natural growth, like the Russian, the British or the American world-states. The possibility of gradual growth was excluded by the fact that the whole world had been partitioned. Greatness in the non-European world must be, and might be, carved out in a single generation, as supremacy in Europe had been already attained, by the strong will, efficient organisation, and military might of the German government.
It was natural, perhaps inevitable, that a nation with the history of the German nation, with its ruling ideas, and with its apparently well-tried confidence in the power of its government to achieve its ends by force, should readily accept such a programme. The date at which this programme captured the government of Germany, and became the national policy, can be quite clearly fixed: it was in 1890, when Bismarck, the 'no colony man,' was driven from power, and the supreme direction of national affairs fell into the hands of the Emperor William II. An impressionable, domineering and magniloquent prince, inflated by the hereditary self-assurance of the Hohenzollerns, and sharing to the full the modern German belief in German superiority and in Germany's imperial destiny, William II. became the spokesman and leader of an almost insanely megalomaniac, but terribly formidable nation. During the first decade of his government the new ambitions of Germany were gradually formulated, and became more distinct. They were not yet very apparent to the rest of the world, in spite of the fact that they were expounded with vigour and emphasis in a multitude of pamphlets and books. The world was even ready to believe the Emperor's assertion that he was the friend of peace: he half believed it himself, because he would have been very ready to keep the peace if Germany's 'rights' could be attained without war. But many episodes, such as Kiao-Chau, and the Philippines, and the ceaseless warfare in the German colonies, and the restless enterprises of Pan-German intrigue, provided a commentary upon these pretensions which ought to have revealed the dangerous spirit which was conquering the German people.
It is difficult, in the midst of a war forced upon the world by German ambition, to take a sane and balanced view of the aims which German policy was setting before itself during these years of experiment and preparation. What did average German opinion mean by the phrase Weltmacht, world-power, which had become one of the commonplaces of its political discussions? We may safely assume that by the mass of men the implications of the term were never very clearly analysed; and that, if they had been analysable, the results of the analysis would have been widely different in 1890 and in 1914, except for a few fanatics and extremists. Was the world-power at which Germany was aiming a real supremacy over the whole world? In a vague way, no doubt, important bodies of opinion held that such a supremacy was the ultimate destiny of Germany in the more or less distant future; and the existence of such a belief, however undefined, is important because it helped to colour the attitude of the German mind towards more immediately practical problems of national policy. But as a programme to be immediately put into operation, world-power was not conceived in this sense by any but a few Pan-German fanatics; and even they would have recognised that of course other states, and even other world-powers, would certainly survive the most successful German war, though they would have to submit (for their own good) to Germany's will. Again, did the demand for world-power mean no more than that Germany must have extra-European territories, like Britain or France? She already possessed such territories, though on a smaller scale than her rivals. Did the claim mean, then, that her dominions must be as extensive and populous as (say) those of Britain? Such an aim could only be obtained if she could succeed in overthrowing all her rivals, at once or in succession. And if she did that, she would then become, whatever her intentions, a world-power in the first and all-embracing sense. It is probably true that the German people, and even the extreme Pan-Germans, did not definitely or consciously aim at world-supremacy. But they had in the back of their minds the conviction that this was their ultimate destiny, and in aiming at 'world-power' in a narrower sense, they so defined their end as to make it impossible of achievement unless the complete mastery of Europe (which, as things are, means the mastery of most of the world) could be first attained. Certainly the ruling statesmen of Germany must have been aware of the implications of their doctrine of world-power. They were aware of it in 1914, when they deliberately struck for the mastery of Europe; they must have been aware of it in 1890, when they began to lay numerous plans and projects in all parts of the world, such as were bound to arouse the fears and suspicions of their rivals.
It is necessary to dwell for a little upon these plans and projects of the decade 1890-1900, because they illustrate the nature of the peril which was looming over an unconscious world. It would be an error to suppose that all these schemes were systematically and continuously pursued with the whole strength of the German state. They appealed to different bodies of opinion. Some of them were eagerly taken up for a time, and then allowed to fall into the background, though seldom wholly dropped. But taken as a whole they showed the existence of a restless and insatiable ambition without very clearly defined aims, and an eagerness to make use of every opening for the extension of power, which constituted a very dangerous frame of mind in a nation so strong, industrious, and persistent as the German nation.
In spite of the disappointing results of colonisation in Africa, the German colonial enthusiasts hoped that something suitably grandiose might yet be erected there: if the Belgian Congo could somehow be acquired, and if the Portuguese would agree to sell their large territories on the east and west coasts, a great empire of Tropical Africa might be brought into being. This vision has not been abandoned: it is the theme of many pamphlets published during the course of the war, and if Germany were to be able to impose her own terms, all the peoples of Central Africa might yet hope to have extended to them the blessings of German government as they have been displayed in the Cameroons and in the South-West.
In the 'nineties there seemed also to be hope in South Africa, where use might be made of the strained relations between Britain and the Boer Republics. German South-West Africa formed a convenient base for operations in this region: it was equipped with a costly system of strategic railways, far more elaborate than the commerce of the colony required. There is no doubt that President Kruger was given reason to anticipate that he would receive German help: in 1895 (before the Jameson Raid) Kruger publicly proclaimed that the time had come 'to form ties of the closest friendship between Germany and the Transvaal, ties such as are natural between fathers and children'; in 1896 (after the Jameson Raid) came the Emperor's telegram congratulating President Kruger upon having repelled the invaders 'without recourse to the aid of friendly powers'; in 1897 a formal treaty of friendship and commerce was made between Germany and the Orange Free State, with which the Transvaal had just concluded a treaty of perpetual alliance. And meanwhile German munitions of war were pouring into the Transvaal through Delagoa Bay. But when the crisis came, Germany did nothing. She could not, because the British fleet stood in the way.
South America, again, offered a very promising field. There were many thousands of German settlers, especially in southern Brazil: the Pan-German League assiduously laboured to organise these settlers, and to fan their patriotic zeal, by means of schools, books, and newspapers. But the Monroe Doctrine stood in the way of South American annexations. Perhaps Germany might have been ready to see how far she could go with the United States, the least military of great powers. But there was good reason to suppose that the British fleet would have to be reckoned with; and a burglarious expedition to South America with that formidable watchdog at large and unmuzzled was an uninviting prospect.
In the Far East the prospects of immediate advance seemed more favourable, since the Chinese Empire appeared to be breaking up. The seizure of Kiao-chau in 1897 was a hopeful beginning. But the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 formed a serious obstacle to any vigorous forward policy in this region. Once more the British fleet loomed up as a barrier.
Yet another dream, often referred to by the pamphleteers though never brought to overt action by the government, was the dream that the rich empire of the Dutch in the Malay Archipelago should be acquired by Germany. Holland herself, according to all the political ethnologists of the Pan-German League, ought to be part of the German Empire; and if so, her external dominions would follow the destiny of the ruling state. But this was a prospect to be talked about, not to be worked for openly. It would naturally follow from a successful European war.
A more immediately practicable field of operations was to be found in the Turkish Empire. It was here that the most systematic endeavours were made during this period: the Berlin-Bagdad scheme, which was to be the keystone of the arch of German world-power, had already taken shape before our period closed, though the rest of the world was strangely blind to its significance. Abstractly regarded, a German dominion over the wasted and misgoverned lands of the Turkish Empire would have meant a real advance of civilisation, and would have been no more unjustifiable than the British control of Egypt or India. This feeling perhaps explained the acquiescence with which the establishment of German influence in Turkey was accepted by most of the powers. They had yet to realise that it was not pursued as an end in itself, but as a means to further domination.
But neither the great Berlin-Bagdad project, nor any of the other dreams and visions, had been definitely put into operation during the decade 1890-1900. Germany was as yet feeling the way, preparing the ground, and building up her resources both military and industrial. Perhaps the main result which emerged from the tentative experiments of these years was that at every point the obstacle was the sprawling British Empire, and the too-powerful British fleet. The conviction grew that the overthrow of this fat and top-heavy colossus was the necessary preliminary to the creation of the German world-state.
This was a doctrine which had long been preached by the chief political mentor of modern Germany, Treitschke, who died in 1896. He was never tired of declaring that Britain was a decadent and degenerate state, that her empire was an unreal empire, and that it would collapse before the first serious attack. It would break up because it was not based upon force, because it lacked organisation, because it was a medley of disconnected and discordant fragments, worshipping an undisciplined freedom. That it should ever have come into being was one of the paradoxes of history; for it was manifestly not due to straightforward brute force, like the German Empire; and the modern German mind could not understand a state which did not rest upon power, but upon consent, which had not been built up, like Prussia, by the deliberate action of government, but which had grown almost at haphazard, through the spontaneous activity of free and self-governing citizens. Treitschke and his disciples could only explain the paradox by assuming that since it had not been created by force, it must have been created by low cunning; and they invented the theory that British statesmen had for centuries pursued an undeviating and Machiavellian policy of keeping the more virile states of Europe at cross-purposes with one another by means of the cunning device called the Balance of Power, while behind the backs of these tricked and childlike nations Britain was meanly snapping up all the most desirable regions of the earth. According to this view it was in some mysterious way Britain's fault that France and Germany were not the best of friends, and that Russia had been alienated from her ancient ally. But the day of reckoning would come when these mean devices would no longer avail, and the pampered, selfish, and overgrown colossus would find herself faced by hard-trained and finely tempered Germany, clad in her shining armour. Then, at the first shock, India would revolt; and the Dutch of South Africa would welcome their German liberators; and the great colonies, to which Britain had granted a degree of independence that no virile state would ever have permitted, would shake off the last shreds of subordination; and the ramshackle British Empire would fall to pieces; and Germany would emerge triumphant, free to pursue all her great schemes, and to create a lasting world-power, based upon Force and System and upon 'a healthy egoism,' not upon 'irrational sentimentalities' about freedom and justice.
These were the doctrines and calculations of Realpolitik. They were becoming more and more prevalent in the 'nineties. They seem definitely to have got the upper hand in the direction of national policy during the last years of the century, when Germany refused to consider the projects of disarmament put forward at the Hague in 1899, when the creation of the German navy was begun by the Navy Acts of 1898 and 1900, and when the Emperor announced that the future of Germany lay upon the water, and that hers must be the admiralty of the Atlantic. At the moment when the conquest of the world by European civilisation was almost complete, two conceptions of the meaning of empire, the conception of brutal domination pursued for its own sake, which has never been more clearly displayed than in the administration of the German colonies, and the conception of trusteeship, which had slowly emerged during the long development of the British Empire, stood forth already in sharp antithesis.
The dreadful anticipation of coming conflict weighed upon the world. France, still suffering from the wounds of 1870, was always aware of it. Russia, threatened by German policy in the Balkans, was more and more clearly realising it. But Britain was extraordinarily slow to awaken to the menace. As late as 1898 Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was advocating an alliance between Britain, Germany, and America to maintain the peace of the world; and Cecil Rhodes, when he devised his plan for turning Oxford into the training-ground of British youth from all the free nations of the empire, found a place in his scheme for German as well as for American students. The telegram to President Kruger in 1896 caused only a passing sensation. The first real illumination came with the extraordinary display of German venom against Britain during the South African war, and with the ominous doubling of the German naval programme adopted in the midst of that war, in 1900. But even this made no profound impression. The majority of the British people declined to believe that a 'great and friendly nation,' or its rulers, could deliberately enter upon a scheme of such unbridled ambition and of such unprovoked aggression.
Throughout the period of rivalry for world-power which began in 1878 the British Empire had continued to grow in extent, and to undergo a steady change in its character and organisation.
In the partition of Africa, Britain, in spite of the already immense extent of her domains, obtained an astonishingly large share. The protectorates of British East Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, Nyasaland, and Somaliland gave her nearly 25,000,000 new negro subjects, and these, added to her older settlements of Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, whose area was now extended, outnumbered the whole population of the French African empire. But besides these tropical territories she acquired control over two African regions so important that they deserve separate treatment: Egypt, on the one hand, and the various extensions of her South African territories on the other. When the partition of Africa was completed, the total share of Britain amounted to 3,500,000 square miles, with a population of over 50,000,000 souls, and it included the best regions of the continent: the British Empire, in Africa alone, was more than three times as large as the colonial empire of Germany, which was almost limited to Africa.
It may well be asked why an empire already so large should have taken also the giant's share of the last continent available for division among the powers of Europe. No doubt this was in part due to the sentiment of imperialism, which was stronger in Britain during this period than ever before. But there were other and more powerful causes. In the first place, during the period 1815-78 British influence and trade had been established in almost every part of Africa save the central ulterior, and no power had such definite relations with various native tribes, many of which desired to come under the protectorate of a power with whom the protection of native rights and customs was an established principle. In the second place, Britain was the only country which already possessed in Africa colonies inhabited by enterprising European settlers, and the activity of these settlers played a considerable part in the extension of the British African dominions. And in the third place, since the continental powers had adopted the policy of fiscal protection, the annexation of a region by any of them meant that the trade of other nations might be restricted or excluded; the annexation of a territory by Britain meant that it would be open freely and on equal terms to the trade of all nations. For this reason the trading interests in Britain, faced by the possibility of exclusion from large areas with which they had carried on traffic, were naturally anxious that as much territory as possible should be brought under British supremacy, in order that it might remain open to their trade.
It is the main justification for British annexations that they opened and developed new markets for all the world, instead of closing them; and it was this fact chiefly which made the acquisition of such vast areas tolerable to the other trading powers. The extension of the British Empire was thus actually a benefit to all the non-imperial states, especially to such active trading countries as Italy, Holland, Scandinavia, or America. If at any time Britain should reverse her traditional policy, and reserve for her own merchants the trade of the immense areas which have been brought under her control, nothing is more certain than that the world would protest, and protest with reason, against the exorbitant and disproportionate share which has fallen to her. Only so long as British control means the open door for all the world will the immense extent of these acquisitions continue to be accepted without protest by the rest of the world.
In the new protectorates of this period Britain found herself faced by a task with which she had never had to deal on so gigantic a scale, though she had a greater experience in it than any other nation: the task of governing justly whole populations of backward races, among whom white men could not permanently dwell, and whom they visited only for the purposes of commercial exploitation. The demands of industry for the raw materials of these countries involved the employment of labour on a very large scale; but the native disliked unfamiliar toil, and as his wants were very few, could easily earn enough to keep him in the idleness he loved. Slavery was the customary mode of getting uncongenial tasks performed in Africa; but against slavery European civilisation had set its face. Again, the ancient unvarying customs whereby the rights and duties of individual tribesmen were enforced, and the primitive societies held together, were often inconsistent with Western ideas, and tended to break down altogether on contact with Western industrial methods. How were the needs of industry to be reconciled with justice to the subject peoples? How were their customs to be reconciled with the legal ideas of their new masters? How were these simple folk to be taught the habits of labour? How were the resources of their land to be developed without interference with their rights of property and with the traditional usages arising from them? These were problems of extreme difficulty, which faced the rulers of all the new European empires. The attempt to solve them in a high-handed way, and with a view solely to the interests of the ruling race, led to many evils: it produced the atrocities of the Congo; it produced in the German colonies the practical revival of slavery, the total disregard of native customs, and the horrible sequence of wars and slaughters of which we have already spoken. In the British dominions a long tradition and a long experience saved the subject peoples from these iniquities. We dare not claim that there were no abuses in the British lands; but at least it can be claimed that government has always held it to be its duty to safeguard native rights, and to prevent the total break-up of the tribal system which could alone hold these communities together. The problem was not fully solved; perhaps it is insoluble. But at least the native populations were not driven to despair, and were generally able to feel that they were justly treated. 'Let me tell you,' a Herero is recorded to have written from British South Africa to his kinsmen under German rule, 'Let me tell you that the land of the English is a good land, since there is no ill-treatment. White and black stand on the same level. There is much work and much money, and your overseer does not beat you, or if he does he breaks the law and is punished.' There was a very striking contrast between the steady peace which has on the whole reigned in all the British dominions, and the incessant warfare which forms the history of the German colonies. The tradition of protection of native rights, established during the period 1815-78, and the experience then acquired, stood the British in good stead. During the ordeal of the Great War it has been noteworthy that there has been no serious revolt among these recently conquered subjects; and one of the most touching features of the war has been the eagerness of chiefs and their peoples to help the protecting power, and the innumerable humble gifts which they have spontaneously offered. Much remains to be done before a perfect solution is found for the problems of these dominions of yesterday. But it may justly be claimed that trusteeship, not domination, has been the spirit in which they have been administered; and that this is recognised by their subjects, despite all the mistakes and defects to which all human governments must be liable in dealing with a problem so complex.
Administrative problems of a yet more complex kind were raised in the two greatest acquisitions of territory made by Britain during these years, in Egypt and the Soudan, and in South Africa. The events connected with these two regions have aroused greater controversy than those connected with any other British dominions; the results of these events have been more striking, and in different ways more instructive as to the spirit and methods of British imperialism, than those displayed in almost any other field; and for these reasons we shall not hesitate to dwell upon them at some length.
The establishment of British control over Egypt was due to the most curious chain of unforeseen and unexpected events which even the records of the British Empire contain. Nominally a part of the Turkish Empire, Egypt had been in fact a practically independent state, paying only a small fixed tribute to the Sultan, ever since the remarkable Albanian adventurer, Mehemet Ali, had established himself as its Pasha in the confusion following the French occupation (1806). Mehemet Ali had been an extraordinarily enterprising prince. He had created a formidable army, had conquered the great desert province of the Soudan and founded its capital, Khartoum, and had nearly succeeded in overthrowing the Turkish Empire and establishing his own power in its stead: during the period 1825-40 he had played a leading role in European politics. Though quite illiterate, he had posed as the introducer of Western civilisation into Egypt; but his grandiose and expensive policy had imposed terrible burdens upon the fellahin (peasantry), and the heavy taxation which was necessary to maintain his armies and the spurious civilisation of his capital was only raised by cruel oppressions.
The tradition of lavish expenditure, met by grinding the peasantry, was accentuated by Mehemet's successors. It inevitably impoverished the country. Large loans were raised in the West, to meet increasing deficits; and the European creditors in course of time found it necessary to insist that specific revenues should be ear-marked as a security for their interest, and to claim powers of supervision over finance. The construction of the Suez Canal (opened 1869), which was due to the enterprise of the French, promised to bring increased prosperity to Egypt; but in the meanwhile it involved an immense outlay. At the beginning of our period Egypt was already on the verge of bankruptcy, and the Khedive was compelled to sell his holding of Suez Canal shares, which were shrewdly acquired for Britain by Disraeli.
But financial chaos was not the only evil from which Egypt suffered. There was administrative chaos also, and this was not diminished by the special jurisdictions which had been allowed to the various groups of Europeans settled in the country. The army, unpaid and undisciplined, was ready to revolt; and above all, the helpless mass of the peasantry were reduced to the last degree of penury, and exposed to the merciless and arbitrary severity of the officials, who fleeced them of their property under the lash. All the trading nations were affected by this state of anarchy in an important centre of trade; all the creditors of the Egyptian debt observed it with alarm. But the two powers most concerned were France and Britain, which between them held most of the debt, and conducted most of the foreign trade, of Egypt; while to Britain Egypt had become supremely important, since it now controlled the main avenue of approach to India.
When a successful military revolt, led by Arabi Pasha, threatened to complete the disorganisation of the country (1882), France and Britain decided that they ought to intervene to restore order, the other powers all agreeing. But at the last moment France withdrew, and the task was undertaken by Britain single-handed.[7] In a short campaign Arabi was overthrown; and now Britain had to address herself to the task of reconstructing the political and economic organisation of Egypt. It was her hope and intention that the work should be done as rapidly as possible, in order that she might be able to withdraw from a difficult and thankless task, which brought her into very delicate relations with the other powers interested in Egypt. But withdrawal was not easy. The task of reorganisation proved to be a much larger and more complicated one than had been anticipated; and it was greatly increased when the strange wave of religious fanaticism aroused by the preaching of the Mahdi swept over the Soudan, raised a great upheaval, and led to the destruction of the Egyptian armies of occupation. Britain had now to decide whether the revolting province should be reconquered or abandoned. Reconquest could not be effected by the utterly disorganised Egyptian army; if it was to be attempted, it must be by means of British troops. But this would not only mean a profitless expenditure, it would also indefinitely prolong the British occupation, which Britain was desirous of bringing to an end at the earliest possible moment.
[7] See above, p. 164
The romantic hero, Gordon, was therefore sent to Khartoum to carry out the withdrawal from the Soudan of all the remaining Egyptian garrisons. On his arrival he came to the conclusion that the position was not untenable, and took no steps to evacuate. There was much dangerous delay and vacillation; and in the end Gordon was besieged in Khartoum, and killed by the bands of the Mahdi, before a relief force could reach him. But this triumph of Mahdism increased its menace to Egypt. The country could not be left to its own resources until this peril had been removed, or until the Egyptian army had been fully reorganised. So the occupation prolonged itself, year after year.
The situation was, in fact, utterly anomalous. Egypt was a province of Turkey, ruled by a semi-independent Khedive. Britain's chief agent in the country was in form only in the position of a diplomatic representative. But the very existence of the country depended upon the British army of occupation, and upon the work of the British officers who were reconstructing the Egyptian army. And its hope of future stability depended upon the work of the British administrators, financiers, jurists, and engineers who were labouring to set its affairs in order. These officials, with Sir Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer) at their head, had an extraordinarily difficult task to perform. Their relations with the native government, which they constantly had to overrule, were difficult enough. But besides this, they had to deal with the agents of the other European powers, who, as representing the European creditors of the Egyptian debt, had the right to interfere in practically all financial questions, and could make any logical financial reorganisation, and any free use of the country's financial resources for the restoration of its prosperity, all but impossible.
Yet in the space of a very few years an amazing work of restoration and reorganisation was achieved. Financial stability was re-established, while at the same time taxation was reduced. The forced labour which had been exacted from the peasantry was abolished; they were no longer robbed of their property under the lash; they obtained a secure tenure in their land; and they found that its productive power was increased, by means of great schemes of irrigation. An impartial system of justice was organised—for the first time in all the long history of Egypt since the fall of the Roman Empire. The army was remodelled by British officers. Schools of lower and higher grade were established in large numbers. In short, Egypt began to assume the aspect of a prosperous and well-organised modern community. And all this was the work, in the main, of some fifteen years.
Meanwhile in the Soudan triumphant barbarism had produced an appalling state of things. It is impossible to exaggerate the hideousness of the regime of Mahdism. A ferocious tyranny terrorised and reduced to desolation the whole of the upper basin of the Nile; and the population is said to have shrunk from 12,000,000 to 2,000,000, although exact figures are of course unattainable. One of the evil consequences of this regime was that it prevented a scientific treatment of the flow of the Nile, on which the very life of Egypt depended. Scientific irrigation had already worked wonders in increasing the productivity of Egypt, but to complete this work, and to secure avoidance of the famines which follow any deficiency in the Nile-flow, it was necessary to deal with the upper waters of the great river. On this ground, and in order to remove the danger of a return of barbarism, which was threatened by frequent Mahdist attacks, and finally in order to rescue captives who were enduring terrible sufferings in the hands of the Mahdi, it appeared that the reconquest of the Soudan must be undertaken as the inevitable sequel to the reorganisation of Egypt. It was achieved, with a wonderful efficiency which made the name of Kitchener famous, in the campaigns of 1896-98. The reconquered province was nominally placed under the joint administration of Britain and Egypt; but in fact the very remarkable work of civilisation which was carried out in it during the years preceding the Great War was wholly directed by British agents and officers.
The occupation of the Soudan necessitated a prolongation of the British occupation of Egypt. But, indeed, such a prolongation was in any case inevitable; for the beneficial reforms in justice, administration, finance, and the organisation of the country's resources, which had been effected in half a generation, required to be carefully watched and nursed until they should be securely rooted: to a certainty they would have collapsed if the guardianship of Britain had been suddenly and completely withdrawn. The growing prosperity of Egypt, however, and still more the diffusion of Western education among its people, has naturally brought into existence a nationalist party, who resent what they feel to be a foreign dominance in their country, and aspire after the institutions of Western self-government. But it has to be noted that the classes among whom this movement has sprung up are not the classes who form the bulk of the population of Egypt—the fellahin, who from the time of the Pharaohs downwards have been exploited and oppressed by every successive conqueror who has imposed his rule on the country. This class, which has profited more than any other from the British regime, which has, under that regime, known for the first time justice, freedom from tyranny, and the opportunity of enjoying a fair share of the fruits of its own labour, is as yet unvocal. Accustomed through centuries to submission, accepting good or bad seasons, just or unjust masters, as the gods may send them, the fellah has not yet had time even to begin to have thoughts or opinions about his place in society and his right to a share in the control of his own destinies; and if the rule which has endeavoured to nurture him into prosperity and self-reliance were withdrawn, he would accept with blind submissiveness whatever might take its place. The classes among whom the nationalist movement finds its strength are the classes which have been in the past accustomed to enjoy some degree of domination; the relics of the conquering races, Arabs or Turks, who have succeeded one another in the rule of Egypt, the small traders and shopkeepers of the towns, drawn from many different races, the students who have been influenced by the knowledge and the political ideas of the West. It is natural and healthy that a desire to share in the government of their country should grow up among these classes: it is in some degree a proof that the influence of the regime under which they live has been stimulating. But it is also obvious that if these classes were at once to reassume, under parliamentary forms, the dominance which they wielded so disastrously until thirty years ago, the result must be unhappy. They are being, under British guidance, gradually introduced to a share in public affairs. But the establishment of a system of full self-government and national independence in Egypt, if it is to be successful, must wait until not only these classes, but also the classes beneath them, have been habituated to the sense of self-respect and of civic obligation by a longer acquaintance with the working of the Reign of Law.
Since the Great War broke out, the British position in Egypt has been regularised by the proclamation of a formal British protectorate. Perhaps the happiest fate which can befall the country is that it should make that gradual progress in political freedom, which is alone lasting, under the guidance of the power which has already given it prosperity, the ascendancy of an impartial law, freedom from arbitrary authority, freedom of speech and thought, and emancipation from the thraldom of foreign financial interests; and in the end it may possibly be the destiny of this ancient land, after so many vicissitudes, to take its place as one among a partnership of free nations in a world-encircling British Commonwealth of self-governing peoples.
The most vexed, difficult, and critical problems in the history of the British Empire since 1878—perhaps the most difficult in the whole course of its history—have been those connected with the South African colonies. In 1878 there were four distinct European provinces in South Africa, besides protected native areas, like Basutoland. All four had sprung from the original Anglo-Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope. In two of them—Cape Colony and Natal—the two European peoples, British and Dutch, dwelt side by side, the Dutch being in a majority in the former, the British in the latter; but in both the difficulty of their relationship was complicated by the presence of large coloured populations, which included not only the native African peoples, Hottentots, Kaffirs, Zulus, and so forth, but also a large number of Asiatics, Malays who had been brought in by the Dutch before the British conquest, and Indians who had begun to come in more recently in large numbers, especially to Natal. Difference of attitude towards these peoples between the British authorities and the Dutch settlers had been in the past, as we have seen, a main cause of friction between the two European peoples, and had caused the long postponement of full self-government. In the other two provinces, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, the white inhabitants were, in 1878, almost exclusively Dutch. The native populations in these states were no longer in a state of formal slavery, but they were treated as definitely subject and inferior peoples: a law of the Transvaal laid it down that 'there shall be no equality in Church or State between white and black.' Thus the mutual distrust originally aroused by the native question still survived. It was intensified by ill-feeling between the Boers and British missionaries. When Livingstone, the British missionary hero, reported the difficulties which the Boers had put in his way, British opinion was made more hostile than ever. Of the two Boer republics, the Orange Free State had enjoyed complete independence since 1854; and no serious friction ever arose between it and the British government. But the Transvaal, which had been turbulent and restless from the first, had been annexed in 1878, largely because it seemed to be drifting into a war of extermination with the Zulus. As a consequence, Britain was drawn into a badly managed Zulu-War; and when this dangerous tribe had been conquered, the Transvaal revolted. The Boers defeated a small British force at Majuba; whereupon, instead of pursuing the struggle, the British government resolved to try the effect of magnanimity, and conceded (1881 and 1884) full local independence to the Transvaal, subject only to a vague recognition of British suzerainty.
This was the beginning of many ills. The Transvaal Boers, knowing little of the world, thought they had defeated Britain; and under the lead of Paul Kruger, a shrewd old farmer who henceforth directed their policy with all but autocratic power, began to pursue the aim of creating a purely Dutch South Africa, and of driving the British into the sea. Kruger's policy was one of pure racial dominance, not of equality of rights. It was a natural aim, under all the conditions. But it was the source of grave evils. Inevitably it stimulated a parallel movement in Cape Colony, where Dutch and British were learning to live peaceably together. The Boer extremists also began to look about for allies, and were tempted to hope for aid from Germany, who had just established herself in South-West Africa. Full of pride, the Transvaalers, though they already held a great and rich country which was very thinly peopled, began to push outwards, and especially to threaten the native tribes in the barren region of Bechuanaland, which lay between the Transvaal and the German territory. To this Britain replied by establishing a protectorate over Bechuanaland (1884) at the request of native chiefs: the motive of this annexation was, not suspicion of Germany, for this suspicion did not yet exist, but the desire to protect the native population.
Kruger's vague project of a Dutch South Africa would probably have caused little anxiety so long as his resources were limited to the strength of the thinly scattered Boer farmers. But the situation was fundamentally altered by the discovery of immense deposits first of diamonds and then of gold in South Africa, and most richly of all in the Rand district of the Transvaal. These discoveries brought a rapid inrush of European miners, financiers, and their miscellaneous camp-followers, and in a few years a very rich and populous European community had established itself in the Transvaal, and had created as its centre the mushroom new city of Johannesburg (founded 1884). These immigrants, who came from many countries, but especially from Britain, changed the situation in the Transvaal; it seemed as though the majority among the white men in that state would soon be British.
A simple and primitive organisation of government, such as sufficed for the needs of Boer farmers, was manifestly inadequate for the needs of the new population, which included, in the nature of things, many undesirable elements; and it was natural that the mining population should desire to be brought under a more modern type of government, or to obtain an effective share in the control of their own affairs. But this was precisely what the Boers of Kruger's way of thinking were determined to refuse them. They were resolved that Boer ascendancy in the Transvaal should not be weakened. They therefore denied to the new immigrants all the rights of citizenship, and would not even permit them to manage the local affairs of Johannesburg. At the same time Kruger imposed heavy taxation upon the gold industry and the people who conducted it; and out of the proceeds he was able not only to pay the expenses of government without burdening the Boer farmers, but to build up the military power by means of which he hoped ultimately to carry out his great project. Thus the 'Uitlanders' found themselves treated as an inferior race in the land which their industry was enriching. They practically paid the cost of the government, but had no share in directing it.
The policy of racial ascendancy has seldom been pursued in a more mischievous or dangerous form. One cannot but feel a certain sympathy with the Boers' desire to maintain Boer ascendancy in the land which they had conquered. Yet it must be remembered that they were themselves very recent immigrants: the whole settlement of the Transvaal had taken place in Paul Kruger's lifetime.
The diamonds and the gold of the recent discoveries had produced in South Africa a new element of power: the power of great wealth, wielded by a small number of men. Some of these were, of course, mean and sordid souls, to whom wealth was an end in itself. But among them one emerged who was more than a millionaire, who was capable of dreaming great dreams, and had acquired his wealth chiefly in order that he might have the power to realise them. This was Cecil Rhodes, an almost unique combination of the financier and the idealist. If he was sometimes tempted to resort to the questionable devices that high finance seems to cultivate, and if his ideals took on sometimes a rather vulgar colour, reflected from his money-bags, nevertheless ideals were the real governing factors in his life.
He dreamed of a great united state of South Africa; it was to be a British South Africa; but it was to be British, not in the sense in which Kruger wished it to be Dutch, but in the sense that equality of treatment between the white races should exist within it, as in all the British lands. He dreamed also of a great brotherhood of British communities, or communities governed by British ideals, girdling the world, perhaps dominating it (for Rhodes was inclined to be a chauvinist), and leading it to peace and liberty. As a lad fresh from Oxford, in long journeyings over the African veldt, he had in a curious, childlike way thought out a theology, a system of politics, and a mode of life for himself; having reached the conclusion that the British race had on the whole more capacity for leading the world successfully than any other, he had resolved that it should be his life's business to forward and increase the influence of British ideas and of British modes of life; and he had systematically built up a colossal fortune in order that he might have the means to do this work. At the roots of this strange medley of poetry and chauvinism which filled his mind was an unchanging and deep veneration for the outstanding memory of his youth, Oxford, which in his mind stood for all the august venerable past of England, and was the expression of her moral essence. When he died, after a life of money-making and intrigue, in a remote and half-developed colony, it was found that most of his immense fortune had been left either to enrich the college where he had spent a short time as a lad, or to bring picked youths from all the British lands, and from what he regarded as the two great sister communities of America and Germany, so that they might drink in the spirit of England, at Oxford, its sanctuary.
His immediate task lay in South Africa, where, from the moment of his entry upon public life, he became the leader of the British cause as Kruger was the leader of the Dutch: millionaire-dreamer and shrewd, obstinate farmer, they form a strange contrast. The one stood for South African unity based upon equality of the white races: the other also for unity, but for unity based upon the ascendancy of one of the white races. In the politics of Cape Colony Rhodes achieved a remarkable success: he made friends with the Dutch party and its leader Hofmeyr, who for a long time gave steady support to his schemes and maintained him in the premiership. It was a good beginning for the policy of racial co-operation. But Rhodes's most remarkable achievement was the acquisition of the fertile upland regions of Mashonaland and Matabililand, now called Rhodesia in his honour. There were episodes which smelt of the shady practices of high finance in the events which led up to this acquisition. But in the result its settlement was well organised, after some initial difficulties, by the Chartered Company which Rhodes formed for the purpose. Now one important result of the acquisition of Rhodesia was that it hemmed in the Transvaal on the north; and, joined with the earlier annexation of Bechuanaland, isolated and insulated the two Dutch republics, which were now surrounded, everywhere except on the east, by British territory. From Cape Town up through Bechuanaland and through the new territories Rhodes drove a long railway line. It was a business enterprise, but for him it was also a great imaginative conception, a link of empire, and he dreamed of the day when it should be continued to join the line which was being pushed up the Nile from Cairo through the hot sands of the Soudan.
But Rhodes's final and most unhappy venture was the attempt to force, by violent means, a solution of the Transvaal problem. He hoped that the Uitlanders might be able, by a revolution, to overthrow Kruger's government, and, perhaps in conjunction with the more moderate Boers, to set up a system of equal treatment which would make co-operation with the other British colonies easy, and possibly bring about a federation of the whole group of South African States. He was too impatient to let the situation mature quietly. He forced the issue by encouraging the foolish Jameson Raid of 1895. This, like all wilful resorts to violence, only made things worse. It alienated and angered the more moderate Boers in the Transvaal, who were not without sympathy with the Uitlanders. It aroused the indignation of the Cape Colony Boers, and embittered racial feeling there. It put the British cause in the wrong in the eyes of the whole world, and made the Boers appear as a gallant little people struggling in the folds of a merciless python-empire. It increased immensely the difficulty of the British government in negotiating with the Transvaal for better treatment of the Uitlanders. It stiffened the backs of Kruger and his party. The German Kaiser telegraphed his congratulations on the defeat of the Raid 'without the aid of friendly powers,' and the implication that this aid would be forthcoming in case of necessity led the Boers to believe that they could count on German help in a struggle with Britain. So every concession to the Uitlanders was obstinately refused; and after three years more of fruitless negotiation, during which German munitions were pouring into the Transvaal, the South African War began. It may be that the war could have been avoided by the exercise of patience. It may be that the imperialist spirit, which was very strong in Britain at that period, led to the adoption of a needlessly high-handed tone. But it was neither greed nor tyranny on Britain's part which brought about the conflict, but simply the demand for equal rights.
The war was one in which all the appearances were against Britain, and the whole world condemned British greed and aggression. It was a case of Goliath fighting David, the biggest empire in the world attacking two tiny republics; yet the weaker side is not necessarily always in the right. It seemed to be a conflict for the possession of gold-mines; yet Britain has never made, and never hoped to make, a penny of profit out of these mines, which remained after the war in the same hands as before it. It was a case of the interests of financiers and gold-hunters against those of simple and honest farmers; yet even financiers have rights, and even farmers can be unjust. In reality the issue was a quite simple and straightforward one. It was the issue of racial ascendancy against racial equality, and as her traditions bade her, Britain strove for racial equality. It was the issue of self-government for the whole community as against the entrenched dominion of one section; and there was no question on which side the history of Britain must lead her to range herself. Whatever the rest of the world might say, the great self-governing colonies, which were free to help or not as they thought fit, had no doubts at all. They all sent contingents to take part in the war, because they knew it to be a war for principles fundamental to themselves.
The war dragged its weary course, and the Boers fought with such heroism, and often with such chivalry, as to win the cordial respect and admiration of their enemies. It is always a pity when men fight; but sometimes a fight lets bad blood escape, and makes friendship easier between foes who have learnt mutual respect. Four years after the peace which added the Transvaal and the Orange Free State as conquered dominions to the British Empire, the British government established in both of these provinces the full institutions of responsible self-government. As in Canada sixty years earlier, the two races were bidden to work together and make the best of one another; because now their destinies were freely under their own control. Yet this was even a bolder experiment than that of Canada, and showed a more venturesome confidence in the healing power of self-government. How has it turned out? Within five years more, the four divided provinces which had presented such vexed problems in 1878, were combined in the federal Union of South Africa, governed by institutions which reproduced those of Britain and her colonies.
In handing over to the now united states of South Africa the unqualified control of their own affairs, Britain necessarily left to them the vexed problem of devising a just relation between the ruling races and their subjects of backward or alien stocks; the problem which had been the source of most of the difficulties of South Africa for a century past, and which had long delayed the concession of full self-government. Nowhere in the world does this problem assume a more acute form than in South Africa, where there is not only a majority of negroes, mostly of the vigorous Bantu stock, but also a large number of immigrants mainly from India, who as subjects of the British crown naturally claim special rights. South Africa has to find her own solution for this complex problem; and she has not yet fully found it. But in two ways her association with the British Empire has helped, and will help, her to find her way towards it. If the earlier policy of the British government, guided by the missionaries, laid too exclusive an emphasis upon native rights, and in various ways hampered the development of the colony by the way in which it interpreted these rights, at least it had established a tradition hostile to that policy of mere ruthless exploitation of which such an ugly illustration was being given in German South-West Africa. An absolute parity of treatment between white and black must be not only impracticable, but harmful to both sides. But between the two extremes of a visionary equality and a white ascendancy ruthlessly employed for exploitation, a third term is possible—the just tutelage of the white man over the black, with a reasonable freedom for native custom. 'A practice has grown up in South Africa,' says the greatest of South African statesmen,[8] 'of creating parallel institutions, giving the natives their own separate institutions on parallel lines with institutions for whites. It may be that on these lines we may yet be able to solve a problem which may otherwise be insoluble.' It is a solution which owes much to the British experiments of the previous period; and the principle which inspires it was incorporated in the Act of Union. This is one of the innumerable fruitful experiments in government in which the British system is so prolific. Again, the problem of the relationship between Indian immigrants and white colonists is an acutely difficult one. It cannot be said to have been solved. But at least the fact that the South African Union and the Indian Empire are both partners in the same British commonwealth improves the chances of a just solution. It helped to find at least a temporary adjustment in 1914; in the future also it may contribute, in this as in many other ways, to ensure that a fair consideration is given to both sides of the thorny question of inter-racial relationship.